ARTICLES ABOUT COALITION BY DATE - PAGE 5

JAZZ Composer and master drummer Bobby Previte is one of the founding members of Manhattan's downtown music scene, that blender of rock, jazz, flat-out improv and funk. As a leader, Previte's groups have tended toward the edgier, long-form improv and rockish, beat-driven pieces spiced with improv. Previte himself has had a quiet obsession with what he calls the bar band, an assembly of killer musicians who can keep a beat and improvise simultaneously. Past collaborations with guitarist Charlie Hunter and his live recordings with another of his super bar bands, Latin For Travelers, suggest some of the territory for "Coalition of the Willing," an instrumental romp through late 20th-century rock, blues and reggae, all from the slightly skewed improvisor's perspective.

Everyone knows someone who has been touched by breast cancer, and that is why members of the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail are encouraging wine lovers to "Taste Pink, Buy Pink and Drink Pink" this weekend. Anyone who buys a bottle of a blush or rosM-i wine during the "Drink Pink" festivities at the nine member wineries also will help the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition. In celebration of the wine trail's 9th anniversary, the winery owners will donate $1 from every bottle of pink wine they sell 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday to the coalition, which provides a network of support for Pennsylvania women battling breast cancer.

About 55 percent of Lehigh Valley restaurants ban smoking, and a majority of Lehigh Valley residents would support a state law calling for an end to tobacco smoke in indoor public places, according to a local anti-smoking group. Seventy-eight percent of the nearly 1,300 registered voters in Lehigh and Northampton counties who returned surveys this year said they would support a ban, according to Alice Dalla Palu, executive director of the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Valley in Allentown.

Many of the 2,000 or so LANTA bus stops in the Lehigh Valley are unsafe, unpleasant or inaccessible, and if something is not done, it will have a long-term affect on ridership, according to one local advocate for mass transit users. Steve Schmitt, director of the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, asked the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study on Monday morning to mention the need for better bus stop maintenance in its long-term surface transportation plan, which is nearing completion.

The Lehigh Valley Peace Coalition and Lehigh Valley Progressive Student Alliance is sponsoring a talk by Michael Berg and Michael Hoffman at 7 p.m. Sunday in the Whitaker Lab auditorium, Lehigh University, Bethlehem. Berg's son Nick was beheaded in Iraq in 2004. Berg is a Green Party candidate in Delaware for a seat in the U.S. Congress. Hoffman, who grew up in Macungie, was part of the military invasion in Iraq in 2003. He helped found Iraq Veterans Against the War. Information about the April 29 anti-war march in New York City also will be available.

By Charles D. Snelling and Bruce Davis Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | March 27, 2006

Last month, readers of The Morning Call were greeted with an in-depth article on Route 22. A number of people asked us what we thought of the story, expecting, we think, that we would be cross because both the headlines and the tone of the article shared the negative idea that Route 22 widening going nowhere fast. The article implied that it might be 30 years, if ever, before the widening of 22 from Fogelsville to Easton would be accomplished. But this was a super article -- just what the doctor ordered.

Two Monroe County groups opposed to a $1.2 billion casino proposed for Tobyhanna Township have joined forces and say they will protest the plan at a state Gaming Control Board hearing next month. But the new group, "No Casino Tobyhanna Township," says it is opposing only the Pocono Manor casino, and not another plan for a casino at neighboring Mount Airy Lodge in Paradise Township. "We feel that any casino will have a devastating effect on local communities," group spokesman Gregory Pence said.

This week, the National Association of Social Workers honored two important people in our community. The Social Worker of the Year is Marcie Lightwood, program coordinator for Project Child, the child abuse prevention coalition in the Lehigh Valley. Marcie works tirelessly to coordinate and lead this coalition. Marcie and the coalition could accomplish a lot more, but funding is low. We need to fund agencies that react to child abuse, but every dollar spent to prevent abuse is a dollar well-invested.

Transforming Route 22 from an antiquated four-lane headache into an eight-lane superhighway at an unprecedented pace -- as a high-profile business group is demanding -- almost certainly will not happen. Even 20 years from now, the chances of cruising down 19 miles of double-wide Route 22 through the heart of the Lehigh Valley are highly unlikely. The widening plan has backers that include those who lobbied for and got construction of such landmark road projects as the completion of Route 33 from the Poconos south through the Lehigh Valley.

Last year held both progress and setbacks for the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, but future prospects are bright. The coalition, which supports forms of transportation such as walking, biking and public transit that decrease car traffic, held its annual membership celebration Sunday. At the meeting Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan publicly vowed he would work to restore $5,000 in funding for the organization for this year that the city cut in December. Callahan said he didn't agree with City Council's decision to cut the money, which was about 10 percent of the coalition's budget.